Spy vs Spy

Spy vs Spy
Putsch counts on stupidity, fear and ignorance to get his way

© Bryan Zepp Jamieson
1/29/06
http://www.mytown.ca/zepp


The good news is that the American people can’t possibly be as stupid as
George W. Putsch thinks they are.

The bad news is that still leaves room for an awful lot of stupid.

In the continuing saga over domestic spying (corporate media-speak for
“illegal wiretapping”), Putsch has come out with a new gambit. “I can do
it” didn’t seem to convince the public that yes, he can do it. “I
checked with Congress” didn’t work when Congress chorused, “No you
didn’t.” “The Constitution says I can do it” didn’t work, because anyone
with half a brain could tell you that the fourth amendment expressly
says he can’t do it. “I’m only spying on terrorists” didn’t work, since
it was unlikely that there were millions of terrorists inside the United
States. If there are, all the wiretaps in the world can’t save the
government now. For better or for worse, though, it’s pretty unlikely
that there’s as many as 1,000 terrorists in America, and most of those
wouldn’t talk to a member of al-Qaida for any reason in the world.
What’s more, they are all-American terrorists who usually vote
Republican. When they are preparing for the coming Race War or figuring
out new ways to make abortionists pay for their sins.

So the latest gambit is to ask permission while not admitting that he
acted improperly. Although he’s already warned Congress that he won’t
explain why he needs permission or why for security reasons. (Oddly
enough, the same reason was proffered for withholding documents relating
to federal response on Katrina: Jon Stewart wryly suggested that if they
released documents on how to deal with hurricanes, future hurricanes
would know our weaknesses.)

Politicians do this all the time, the act of securing ex post facto
legal justification for misdeeds, and it often gets them off the hook.

But in this case, the permission is not Congress’s to give. They can’t
pass a law directing the President to disregard the bill of rights. Even
a finely tuned legal mind like Scam Scalito’s would have to admit to that.

But Putsch is going to try that one anyway, and hope that if he can get
the lickspittles in the House GOP to rubberstamp his actions, the
American public will just shrug, mumble, “Oh, well, in that case...” and
turn back to munching chips and watching American Idol.

One of the more whorish television networks ran a poll on the issue,
asking if people minded the government listening in on phone calls with
suspected terrorists. Not surprisingly, most people said they wouldn’t mind.

But the poll didn’t mention that said eavesdropping would be without
warrants, and would be snooping, not just on terrorists, but on peace
activists, environmentalists, anyone who was acquainted with anyone who
might know someone who knew a possible terrorist, and Democrats.

AP-Ipsos ran a slightly more honest poll, asking people if the
government should be required to get a warrant before conducting a
wiretap on a conversation with a suspected terrorists. Only a
disheartening 56% agreed. Forty-two percent of respondents were
perfectly happy to throw away the bill of rights for “the war on terror”.

Worse was a poll that asked if people minded the president foregoing
warrants for wiretaps if it meant going after terrorists. Fifty four
percent agreed with that.

I hope these clowns just didn’t think before answering. If it’s their
considered stance, I hope they’ll stop calling themselves “Americans”
and thus not insult the ten generations of Americans who fought and
sometimes died for the right to not have the government snoop at will in
their personal affairs.

America’s always had custardheads. “Only the English can protect us from
the French and the Indians.” “Yes, slavery is nasty, but it’s the only
way to avoid a civil war.” “Maybe we can work some sort of deal with
Hitler.” “George needs to spy on our phone calls so he can catch bin Laden.”

They are a useless nuisance, normally. But if they are in the majority,
America really is finished.

Lots of room for stupid. Another poll says that 57% support military
action against Iran. Granted, the poll is dishonest, and stipulates that
Iran is going to have a nuclear weapon in the near future (most analysts
don’t see that happening for ten years, at least), and of course
“military action” is carefully left vague. You have to be pretty stupid
just to believe this administration’s assertion that Iran is on the
verge of developing the bomb.

I’m guessing that most people have only the vaguest notion that there is
a sort of a stand off going with Iran, and they probably think it’s just
some third world backwards desert place that’s full of Arabs.

It’s none of those things. It’s a country of sixty million with a
fully-developed infrastructure. That’s nearly four times the size of
Iraq. The people generally like their government and their leader, and
will fight for both. And much of the country is mountainous, and heavily
forested. Lots of places to hide lots of things, and one intelligence
report says that the Iranian nuclear program is widely scattered, in
between 40 and 120 locales, with lots of redundancy so if Israel and
America were to attack, get lucky, and actually hit part of their
program, it wouldn’t be an irreplaceable loss.

So a “military strike” in the form of a bombing raid or two would not
only be useless, but quite probably counterproductive. The president if
Iran is a religious fundamentalist who gets people to follow him by
trash-talking a potential enemy. That would be pretty much like the
President of America. Which means he’s no crazier than Putsch

The bad news is that still leaves room for awful lot of crazy.

An attack from Israel and/or America would play right into his hands,
and give him justification for scaremongering. It would be for him what
9/11 was for Putsch. In fact, he might just arrange to have an attack
that is very gaudy and blame Israel and America for it. It’s not like
that’s never happened before.

So 57% favor an attack on a country for reasons that are pretty much
bogus, that will accomplish nothing, and will only hurt American interests.

Say, isn’t that about where we were three years ago, when Putsch was
trying to persuade us that Saddam had or was about to get the bomb? Any
reason why anyone who isn’t capital-S Stupid should believe him this
time around?